Rewatching ST:TNG after taking a break for 20 years. Data sees firsthand how he’s a chip off the old block, and almost gets emotional about a new chip on his shoulder (or thereabouts). The B-plot about a brother-on-brother prank features children who are believably childish, in that they aren’t wise beyond their years, or prodigies,…
Stunning. The Stars and Stripes is much more important than any local monument. Even for those of us who are all too wearily familiar with President Donald Trump’s disdain for journalists, his administration’s latest attack on the free press is a bit of a jaw-dropper. In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an…
On Sunday night, President Donald Trump retweeted a video of a violent incident on a New York City subway platform. The video shows a Black man pushing a white woman into a train car and is captioned “Black Lives Matter / Antifa.” The problem? It is over a year old and has nothing to do with either Black Lives Matter or Antifa. It, in fact, shows the actions of a mentally ill man with no known ties to either group.
Similar:Jury Duty UpdateI’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-…GovernmentToday's 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel went pretty fast. At this stage I'm mostly re…One of many steampunk control panels I’v…AestheticsCelebration of Writing Fall 2018PersonalShe’s on her way to the @thepublicpgh for two shows today as Margot in Dial M for Murder.She’s on her way to…
A good response to the myth that the labor of an online instructor is less valuable than the labor of an in-person instructor. Most of a college’s budget is labor. When a physical campus moves to online teaching, it doesn’t save much labor at all. Grading an online student’s paper takes the same amount of…
I hoped this slide would appeal to my students as I taught them about pitching a news story. Similar:If You Ever Find a Link to ThoughtCatalog, I'm Begging You Not to Click It Here’s a thought… nothing you can …BusinessStudent Newspapers Scurry to Make Ends Meet“After 112 years as The Daily Emerald, t…AcademiaCreate Joy with…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Still recovering from his ordeal with the Borg, Picard visits his brother at the Picard family vineyard. In the village of his boyhood, Picard’s roadside encounter with his nephew Rene is just perfect, as are the domestic scenes with his warm sister-in-law Marie and his brittle, jealous older brother…
Similar:Just a #neovictorian avatar in spats and a tailcoat, checking out the back porch and bridg… AestheticsWho is the more dramatic — my extroverted tween or my philosophical teen?Stoked from a morning show-choir perform…AmusingI'm Gradually Losing My Hearing. (It’s Part of Aging.)During a department meeting today, I not…AcademiaThe boy tied for second place in Saturday's…
Similar:Let's conſider ſome ſurpriſing old type: "Did you ever hear ſuch a wind-ſucker, as this?"I ſhall always treaſure the pleaſant ſur…Amusing‘Not good, not nice’: At Florida rally, Trump says China has ‘targeted our farmers’They weren’t the most newsworthy part of…Current_EventsJane Elliott’s “National Brotherhood Week” Lesson https://youtu.be/oGvoXeXCoUYCultureThis is what an "umm" looks likeThis image, of the…
Similar:Seton Hill Hogwarts Dinner What would I get if I added powdered…AcademiaNo, Kirk and Uhura didn't share the first interracial kiss on televisionSee Also: Star Trek: The Next Gener…CultureToday's lunarbaboon… there might be something in my eye. Hey! Want me to take her f…AwesomeKirk's manly, sensitive advice to young CharlieIn popular culture, Captain Kirk from th…CultureIn…
Similar:Downtime with the boy.PersonalServing at midnight breakfast.PersonalHow The NY Times Is Sparking the VR Journalism RevolutionJust as young people in journalism schoo…CybercultureI'm amused by the quirky way the "Thin Bread Crust" meme remixes the remix.I’m interested in the way the “Thin Blue…BusinessNASA Calls It A Mission As Curiosity Rover Fills Up Whole 2-Gigabyte Memory CardMore…
Similar:Had a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block party AcademiaEnjoying my "Dystopia in American Literature" class.After a kind of prelude in which we look…AcademiaRob Rogers' firing is a frightening omenPulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Nick A…CultureMasks serve many purposes. How sad that they’ve become politicized. I’ve seen the original meme on my…
Similar:SportsWorks Adventure at the Carnegie Science CenterI confess that I have never been all tha…CultureHow Not to Be a Jackass at Your Next Academic ConferenceOkay, I confess, I was once in the audie…AcademiaWeird History offers a good debunking of this persistent myth.PersonalSynergistic Synthesis XVII Sub B1 Chair by Kenneth SmytheAfter my daughter’s theater workshop, I…
Similar:More #Blender3D practice. Making many objects to liven up a #steampunk environment.PersonalChess again with my son.GamesHow 'A Wrinkle in Time' Changed Sci-Fi ForeverI read this book for the first time just…BooksPositive Feedback on a Blogging AssignmentA former student who is now excelling in…AcademiaHow the printing press changed “you”: when reading changed, so did writingThis…
In August 2000, I was blogging about Top 10 Tips for Writing Poetry (which I’ve updated over the years and is the most popular page on my site today) Richard Lederer’s presidential wordplay (“I predict that at the end of the campaign. Gore will be bushed and Bush will be gored. Then we’ll have either…
Similar:Internet Explorer and Murder Rates: More Fun with Causation and Correlation IE.png – mlkshk.AmusingEgypt sentences Al Jazeera journalists to years in prisonAn Egyptian court has sentenced two Al J…Current_EventsMy Student Calls Out a Mental Health Stigma in a Biased Headline — But Here's Why We Shou…This morning a journalism student told m…CultureEmpathy in a Downtown…
Our understanding of COVID-19 has accreted around the idea that it kills a few and is “mild” for the rest. That caricature was sketched before the new coronavirus even had a name; instead of shifting in the light of fresh data, it calcified. It affected the questions scientists sought to ask, the stories journalists sought…
Similar:Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe. —Thomas JeffersonEducationNight Terrors (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 17) Trapped crew grows paranoi…Rewatching ST:TNG After discovering t…PersonalMasked up, so I don't infect you, in case you are in a vulnerable group. Feeling healthy. …CultureWhich of my colleagues wants attention?AcademiaYoungster in…
Another very rough day. Students are cheerful and patient, obviously happy to be here. I can barely understand what the students right in front of me are saying. (It’s not about volume… the problem is I can’t see their lips moving; I do have an appointment with an audiologist Friday.) I long for the days…
Similar:Most Americans have a high opinion of the humanities, and 81% use at least one humanities-…While some survey respondents were unfam…AcademiaIt's not just you — we are all more forgetful during the pandemic, experts say. Here's ho… Pandemic living can make it much more …CultureThe daughter is doing another thing, this time in Galway, Ireland.…